And last of all came the renovations and restorations of modern times--four-cornered towers, with little low windows and shapeless portals. The arabesques were all white-washed, and where here and there the mortar falls from the walls, you may catch a glimpse of the stones with which the church was originally built, relics of every age which has visited the place and vanished tracklessly. Here sculptured fragments of the old Mythra cultus; there mutilated Vestals. Below, the top of an ancient altar with the broken symbol of a sun upon it; above, florid and fantastic arabesques. And again the town lost its name. They call it now Karoly-Fehervár.[46] [Footnote 46: _Karoly-Fehervár._ White Charles' town. German: Karlsburg.] * * * * * At the time in which our story is laid, this town was the place where the Princes of Transylvania used to be consecrated and the Diets to be held. Where the episcopal palace now stands stood then the Prince's residence, restored by John Sigismund,[47] with marble inlaid chambers, and walls covered with battle-pieces in fresco. The great hall where the Diet met was separated from the surrounding chambers by a balustrade of tinted marble. Round about the walls hung the busts of princes and woywodes interspersed with trophies. In front stood the throne covered with purple, and round about it a triumphal baldachin made of banners, shields, and morning-stars. [Footnote 47: John Sigismund Zapolya (1540-1571), with whom the line of the Transylvanian princes began.] The rest of the town was scarcely in keeping with the pomp of the Prince's residence, for in 1618 the Diet had been obliged to command the inhabitants to cease dwelling in tents, and build up their ruinous houses again. * * * * * The Estates of the Realm have already assembled. Every one is in his place. Only the seat of the Prince is still vacant. There they sit in order of precedence--the Transylvanian patricians, the heads of the Hungarian nobility, the most eminent in wit, wealth, and valour--the Bethlens, the Csakys, the Lazars, the Kemenys, the Mikeses, the Banfis!--those mediæval clans whose will is the nation's, whose deeds form its history, whose ancestors, grandfathers and fathers, have either perished on the battle-field in defence of their princes, or on the scaffold for defying them. And their descendants loyally follow their examples. A new prince comes to the throne, and they take up again the swords which have fallen from their fathers' hands--to wield it for or against him, as Fate may decree. The Szekler deputies with their homely garb and sullen, dogged faces, and the Saxon burghers with their simple, round, red countenances, and their primeval German costume, form a striking contrast to the dashing and resplendent Hungarian magnates.